Which story do I tell? A conference I went to yesterday reminded me that some nonprofits serve so many different communities that “the story” to tell is not always clear-cut. There might be many stories to share. Many experiences, many needs, many perspectives. I had the best time yesterday at the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Stronger Together event for local nonprofits.
What to do with stories you collect My colleagues on writing projects always laugh at me because I can’t stop myself from using lots of quotes. I just feel like there are times when I can’t say something more eloquently or powerfully or succinctly than the original writer or interviewee. So whenever I’m collecting stories – whether for a research
How to collect stories with compassion Here’s the thing about people’s stories – as critical as they are for organizations to understand the difference they are making, they’re not always easy to share. I recently experienced this myself. An advocacy group that I am part of, the Ohio Perinatal Behavioral Health Task Force, is collecting stories related to mental/behavioral health
What happened when I tracked my own data I’ve decided to practice what I preach. I’m using my own data to tell my story. My LinkedIn story. If you also post on LinkedIn regularly, you may have also been confused recently by algorithm changes and inconsistent engagement and a whole process I have been trying to understand but really don’t.
Family engagement metrics that matter As a mom of a rising kindergartener, I can’t believe that back-to-school season is already upon us. I’ve written before about our journey finding a kindergarten placement for my daughter. Thankfully, that’s been resolved, but it’s been weird navigating this from the parent – and not the school – side. It’s so important to make
Giving your organization a confidence boost Recently, my 4 year-old daughter was having trouble falling asleep. So like I’ve done before, I talked to her and told her all the things I love about her. I told her that she was kind, loving, curious, funny … And before I could continue, she added strong and independent, because those are things
Why life’s been humbling lately When I worked in schools, I knew many kids being raised by someone other than their biological parent. Unless they told me directly, I didn’t always know why these families looked the way they did or the circumstances they were going through. When I started in social work research over six years ago, I learned
Is my guilty pleasure show evidence-based? A while back, I was telling a colleague that I had allowed myself to watch one season of my guilty pleasure show over winter break. What was the show? Married at First Sight. (Deep breath … Okay, I admitted it.) If you’re not familiar with the show, it is essentially a forum for getting
Nothing like motherhood to change your perspective It was about 3 days into being a mom that I thought, “How could I have ever asked a mom to go to a PTO meeting!?” I laugh at myself now because I was clearly not inviting any newly postpartum parents to an event, but that moment was the start of a whole
When I was updating my website recently, I came across a post I wrote when my daughter was a newborn, talking about the metrics that were relevant to me at the time. It listed things like how many ounces she was eating at a time, how little sleep we got each night, and how many times we had to put
